Tag: Firefox
Firefox 3.6.4 Released: Flash No Longer Crashes Your Browser
by Ranju Chaudhary on Jun.23, 2010, under Latest Web Technologies, What's Happening?
After some delays, Mozilla has released Firefox 3.6.4, the newest version of the popular web browser. It comes with one big addition: protection against crashing due to third-party plugins, most notably Adobe Flash.
The updated browser, which you can download here, comes with dozens of bug fixes and stability upgrades. What the average user will care about most though is Firefox
crash protection, something that is a prominent feature of Google Chrome
.
Crash protection utilizes out-of-process plugins technology to run third-party plugins (specifically Flash, Quicktime, and Silverlight) in a separate process. In the past, a plugin crash would take down your entire Firefox browser. With crash protection however, “the browser will stay running while the portions of websites controlled by the plugin will be disabled.” It only takes a refresh to restart the plugin.
There is a catch, though: only Windows and Linux users have access to crash protection. According to Mozilla, making crash protection available to Mac OS X users would require major changes to Firefox’s infrastructure. However, the non-profit promises that it will become available for Mac users in Firefox 4, which should ship by the end of the year.
Mini Wide Fullscreens Gmail, Is Very Netbook Friendly
by neetika on Mar.12, 2010, under Latest Web Technologies
Firefox/Chrome: Small netbook screens make you really appreciate every last pixel on your device. The Mini Wide userscript for Gmail adds a “netbook mode” shortcut to Gmail that removes navigation and ads for a streamlined, netbook-friendly, message-focused view of your inbox.
Once installed, just tap ‘w’ to toggle between the default Gmail view and netbook mode. That’s all there is to it. Assuming you’ve mastered Gmail’s keyboard shortcuts, the lack of navigation isn’t all that big of a deal—plus you can easily bring back the default view with a quick press of the ‘w’ key. The tweak is a little rough around the edges at times (I couldn’t use ‘g’ + ‘l’ label navigation unless I toggled out of mini mode, for example), but it’s a nice start, and could be really useful for netbook users.
You’ll need the Grease monkey extension to install it in Firefox; Chrome supports installing userscripts as extensions, so just head to the homepage and click Install.
